The Message
by RiteOnTime
Summary: Not overt, but SPOILERS FOR BLOOD OF OLYMPUS. How Sally and Paul cope with the message Percy leaves in Son of Neptune. Rated T for language. Will probably end up being a two-shot. Now definitely going to be a two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

Some days she played his message on repeat for hours. Weeks later she still feels terrible that she missed his call, that she couldn't just fucking _be there_ because maybe she would have been able to convince him to just come home. But of course not; she had to be out grocery shopping of all things and she missed Percy's call.

When she gets back to the apartment, Paul is already there and he's crying, which he hasn't done the whole time her son has been missing. All he says is, "Sally, it's him," before playing the message and then everything else fades away except the sound of Percy's voice and real, tangible proof that he is _alive_. That night she doesn't know how many times she replays the message or how the groceries get put away or when she eventually falls asleep.

The next day, Paul brings over a friend of a friend who copies the message onto two separate voice recorders. It makes her love her husband more, and fill in the hole in her chest just the smallest bit. She makes dinner that night: a simple beef stew and homemade bread she hasn't made since before Gabe came into their lives. And throughout the night she replays Percy's message every so often, overjoyed to know that he's okay.

Annabeth IMs a couple hours before midnight, which isn't all that surprising or unwelcome. Sally has been kept up to date about the progress to get Percy, so she knows that Annabeth and a few other demigods are leaving soon. But they're shipping out first thing in the morning, so she wanted Sally to know that their waiting might be over soon. There is so much excitement between the two of them.

"Please be careful," Sally asks as the call nears its end. "I don't know what we would do without you." And it's true. Despite the fact that Annabeth was probably similarly as worried and anxious about Percy as Sally was, she'd done well keeping herself together, having stayed in school and supervised the preparations for this quest. Of course it was probably her way of coping, being busy so she didn't have to focus too much on anything else.

"Thanks, Mrs. Jackson," she replied, ending the call a few moments later. Sally was excited and giddy because her boy would be home soon and then she would never let him out of her sight again.

It didn't take long before the excitement faded, only to be replaced by anxiety. Weeks passed and she didn't hear word from anyone, and she began to assume the worst. She tried to write to take her mind off her worry, but nothing came out. The possibility that all those kids might not make it was sometimes too much, even if she didn't personally know them all.

Weeks turn into a month of Sally using the recording of Percy's message as a way to stay calm. He's coming home soon, and they'll all be okay, and it's all a lie because they've been gone too long and something has gone horribly wrong. Her mind is all over the place and she wishes she could just think clearly. She takes to jogging after reading an article online about how it can help relieve stress. In her case it's really just a way to take her mind off things for a while because when she's running the only thing she can focus on is her next breath. Or how much her knees ache. Or how she wants to stop but if she can just make it a little bit further then she won't have to think for so long that day.

Paul spends a lot of the summer working. Not writing, but preparing for the new school year. He rereads the books on his curriculum even though he's read them all at least half a dozen times. Every few weeks he writes up a new syllabus just so he won't have to sit still and do nothing. If he's not working, he sits on the couch and stares at the wall and tries not to think.

That's only when Sally isn't around. He does everything he can to be everything she needs, even if it can never be enough. And every so often he will listen to the message his step-son left, wishing that he would just walk through the front door alive and well.

It's not until a few weeks before the end of summer that Paul is driving through the city that he notices something… different in the skyline. A blue light. He tries to think back and remember why that's familiar before it suddenly clicks and he races back to his apartment, trying to get ahold of Sally and hoping she isn't out jogging again.

After what seems like way too much time, Paul finally bursts through his front door to find Sally passed out on the couch in her workout gear. And he can't help but be disappointed because he thought, he really thought, that the blue light meant Percy would be home and safe. That's what it meant last time. So it's too much. He wakes up Sally and she asks him what's wrong because he's crying, which he's tried to avoid the past 7 months.

Their lives are so unfair, so cruel, to have to exist in a world without Percy Jackson. While he's telling her these things she already knows, there's a soft knock at the door.

"I'll get it," she says, kissing him on the cheek before getting up. Paul tries to compose himself; he gets some tissues to wipe away the tearstains on his face and blow his nose. When Sally opens the door, he turns his face away to get a few more seconds to readjust.

He hears Sally's soft "oh my god" and turns to see what's going on, probably getting whiplash in the process. She looks to be hugging the life out of someone right now, and he only knows of two people in the world whose appearance would elicit death by hug. Tentatively, he stands up and sees Percy's distinctly messy black hair before he rushes over to put is arms around the both of them.

They're all crying and telling each other how much they were missed and Paul thinks he's never been happier to be a father in his entire life. It takes a few minutes for them to disentangle and move to sit down at the kitchen table. Neither he nor Sally can stop themselves from asking what happened, and Percy tells them.

As he talks, Sally holds on to one of his hands, which most teenage boys would not allow their mothers to do. Then again most teenage boys aren't Percy. So as he told them about how he was essentially asleep for months, training with Lupa, the Roman camp, and his quest to get the Roman eagle, he held on to his mother's hand. Nothing he said seemed any more dangerous than the things Percy had already faced, though Sally was immensely proud of him.

"But there was this thing I remembered, before I started getting my memories back," he started a bit apprehensively. "Well, um, just one person really. Annabeth." Percy looked like what he said was offensive, but Sally only smiled and patted his cheek.

Paul hadn't even thought of it before then and wanted to slap himself for it. _Where was Annabeth?_ Before Percy's disappearance, they spent as much time together as their schedules permitted. The lack of Annabeth's presence was disconcerting and the look on Percy's face when he mentioned her name suggested something had happened. Sally started along the same line of thinking as Paul, smile disappearing.

"Is she okay?"

"Oh, um, I think so…" At the looks Sally and Paul were giving him, Percy realized what it sounded like he was saying. "She's alive, she's not hurt or anything! It's just something that happened to us that I haven't gotten to yet." Sally took a good look at her son. He was leaner, more muscled, more… aged, even though he wasn't that much older from the last time she saw him. There were dark circles under his eyes and there was something forced about the way he was acting, like he was trying to be himself.

"Where is she, Percy?" Paul asked.


	2. Chapter 2

"She's at camp." Percy was being frustratingly standoffish.

"Why didn't she come with you?" Sally loved Annabeth, especially after how helpful she had been before leaving on the _Argo_. Just the occasional updates on what they were doing at camp, where they thought they would be headed when the time came, and stopping by for meals had helped both Sally and Paul tremendously. And now they were worried for her; she had become a part of their family after all.

Percy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "She said she didn't want to 'intrude.'" He was pouting, actually pouting, and the whole situation was just so absolutely ridiculous that Sally decided to fix it then and there.

"Grab your keys, Paul, we're going to go get her." Both of them looked at her with confused expressions, but her husband got up anyway while she gathered her things together.

"Uh, but Mom," Percy started, clearly still confused by the fact that they were about to drive to camp to get Annabeth. He'd always known his Mom and Paul liked her, but he was surprised by how concerned they were and he couldn't figure out why. "She was really adamant about not coming." Which was weird. Shouldn't that be weird?

Sally didn't have time for him to think it through; they were both so stubborn. "Percy, after everything Annabeth did for us while you were gone, there's no way I'm letting her stay anywhere other than here." She could see him working it over and when her words finally sunk in, his face was so full of guilt. That's not what she wanted to do, she didn't want to make him feel guilty, none of this was his fault.

He was going to apologize, her stubborn, noble son was going to _apologize_ for something that wasn't his fault. Before he could say anything, she pulled him into another embrace. "Don't think for a second that we blame you for anything that happened." She could see Paul waiting for them out of the corner of her eye.

"Now let's go get Annabeth, and you are both going to tell me what happened, and then we'll get whatever you guys want to eat on the way back." There were some other things they would have to work out, like who would sleep where, because her son probably had to grow up a lot in the past months but no way was Sally going to let them sleep in his bed together. Percy just smiled and said okay and the three of them filed out of the apartment.

The drive there was quiet at first, aside from the radio. Paul had thought that it would keep him from imagining what these kids had been through. He wanted to ask questions and he wanted to know what else had happened, but it seemed that Sally wanted to wait to hear the rest until they got Annabeth. They had heard what happened to Percy up until the _Argo_ got to California and he wanted to know what happened to change his step-son. His story so far didn't seem any worse than defeating a Titan army. What was a giant and a few cronies to an entire army, right?

Already he could notice things were different. His demeanor wasn't the same; he was quieter, more reserved, wanting to keep to himself. As they left the city, someone next to them honked and Percy jumped like he was frightened. Even after the battle in New York last year, Percy seemed okay after the first few weeks, and even then he wasn't jumpy. But this time things felt different and Paul couldn't help but wonder if this was post-traumatic stress.

Percy wasn't even seventeen yet and he had seen more horrors than Paul had ever and hopefully would ever know. Sure, he'd engaged in some swordplay last summer, but it's not like he saw what he was really fighting. How do you cope with seeing monsters and nightmares all the time?

Paul kept to himself, but after a while, Sally was talking and telling Percy about what happened to them while he was gone. Despite how absolutely shitty everything had been, she was smiling. She told him how they sat around not doing much aside from hoping for an update from Annabeth because, really, what else could they do? They couldn't go to Camp Half-Blood, they couldn't find their son because of that one goddess Sally couldn't curse out loud without some form of retaliation, and they couldn't live their lives.

"Do you remember a few years ago when you went missing for a couple weeks?" Percy nodded, not really wanting to talk but still listening to his mother with interest. "At first I thought it was going to be just like that and I held on to that hope for a few months, but…" She didn't want to burden him with this; it wasn't something he needed to hear. This was why Paul kept suggesting she go to a therapist, to talk it out.

"I know, mom," Percy said. There it was again, his unfounded guilt. She sighed before continuing.

"Well Annabeth, like I said, was amazing, but she also – this was really hard on all three of us, just make sure you acknowledge that. She just… she worked so hard with her schooling and trying to find you and preparing for this quest you all went on. I don't know how she managed, being so busy. She really helped us," Sally concluded, not really done talking. But they were coming up on the camp boundary now so the rest would have to wait for later.

"Thanks for wanting to get her." He sounded so unbelievably _sad_ as his gaze fixated on the passing scenery. Were there no happy moments? Was there nothing to laugh about? This was _Percy_, he always found a way to infuse joy into pretty much any situation.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again; that girl is incredibly special. So of course." Paul stopped the prius just off the side of the road and Sally got out of the car with Percy. "Now go get her and help her pack and make sure she has enough for at least a week." She hugged him and he said okay and told her he loved her before waving to Paul and jogging up Half-Blood Hill.

She got back in the car, because they were going to be at least twenty minutes, and Paul was waiting for her with an anxious look on his face. It was one of those "we need to talk about something serious looks" he had given her a lot over the past months, but before he had never actually talked to her about anything. This time was different.

"Sally, I think there's something we need to consider here." Why did he have to sound so serious? "I don't think this is quite the same as last year," he continued, trying to communicate some sort of hidden message with the look on his face.

"Of course it's not the same," she replied. It wasn't, Sally knew that. They would all need time to heal, but she hadn't notice Percy jump at the car horn earlier. Paul wondered how she hadn't come to the same conclusion as him.

"No, I think that Percy has taken away more mental stress than he has in the past. I think he might be dealing with something like post-traumatic stress or depression. Honestly I'm surprised it hasn't happened before considering what he's been through."

"What are you talking about?" she asked with both curiosity and fear.

"So far it's just the little things: he's withdrawn, disengaged. Someone honked at us earlier and he actually jumped in his seat when it happened," he stated.

All of a sudden, Sally was angry, letting out a sound that was a mix between a sigh and a yell. "Why are they doing this to him?!" she exclaimed seemingly to no one in particular and putting her head in her hands. Paul didn't say anything, just put his arm around her. He knew her anger and frustration wasn't directed at him; they'd talked about it enough for him to be confident in that.

When she picked her head up, he could see that she had been crying and mentally kicked himself for not noticing it. "It's not fair," she said and Paul's heart broke again. For her, for them, for Percy and Annabeth and all the people who had had their lives stolen. Sally put her head on his shoulder and he released a few tears. They stayed that way for a long time, or what seemed like it, until they saw Percy and Annabeth walking towards them with hands entwined and what looked like way more than a week's worth of stuff.

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><p><strong>AN: So this took way longer for me to write than I thought. Sorry to all those that were waiting. Definitely extending this to be at least three chapters now.**


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